This shocking news has just been sent to the Diamond Geezers suite of offices. How do we know this and what is our source of information?

The first inklings of a terrible secret came about when Calliopoeia was researching an article about the Kenyan Harlequins and came upon the following passage:

"Harlequins first Enterprise Cup was in 1955 at Parklands against a farmers' side from Eldoret and the final score was again in Harlequins favour 6-3.

Soon thereafter, Harlequins moved to the Ngong Road ground and prominent members of the club at the time were Mike Scott, Robert Kinkead, Beaver Delaney, Kevin O'Byrne, Cyril Stanley, Cecil Irvine and later Roy Irwin"

Mike “Scotty” Scott was thought to have been around 28 at the time which suggests he was born in 1927 which would mean that today he is 75, long past his retirement date and long eligible for his free bus pass. Is he already collecting his state pension thereby doubling his pay from Harlequins?

But the more we looked into this story the stranger it became. But what of his life before playing rugby in the colonies – it was discovered that he worked “down ‘t’pit” for thirty years before leaving these fair shores, he was a late developer and as such only became a miner at the age of four (they’re tough in the north east) so he was already 34 by the time he travelled to Kenya (making him 81 today) – so why the discrepancy with the age shown in the Kenyan Harlequins Club records? We smelled a rat and dug further.

One of the 57 “Old Geezers” was able to help us out. We had of course, forgotten about time served in the city – de rigeur for anyone related to Quins. Upon returning from Kenya, the old boys network immediately found Scotty a very highly paid job in the city – mainly taking clients to long lunches, a role at which he excelled. Scotty spent 10 years doing this and increasing his contacts. The pile of 38,472 business cards he collated over this period together with a penchant
for lobster & champagne ensured he had all the credentials required of a Harlequins team manager.

We decided to sneak into his house in the Hampshire countryside. It was a dark abode and again we smelled a rat but for completely different reasons – the place was full of all kinds of vermin snapping at our heels. In the attic we found a painting of Scotty that was darkened with age, depicting him as a nipper but with a twisted and disfigured face, with the signature “F.Leighton”. [Painter and President of the Royal Academy – we expected no less from a Harlequin!] The painting was of a youthful Scotty before leaving for Kenya at the age of 33 – and dated 1854. This means that Mr Scott is actually 181 today and STILL going strong on the dancefloor!

Then looking closer it was realised that images of rugby players could be seen in the background – all of them in terrible pain. The players that we recognised had all had injuries – Jamie Williams was there as were Pat Sanderson, Dan Luger, Ace Tiatia, Tu Tamarua, David Wilson, James Hayter, Will Greenwood and Keith Wood – looking closer at the terrible image more and more contorted faces could be seen – Saracens players, Gosforth players, Kenyan Harlequin players. Was this some sort of Dorian Gray nightmare – was Scotty lengthening his life through the misfortune of others – does this explain the curse of the number 7 shirt at Quins (which was previously thought to be due to a gypsy curse), is this why people known to Scotty become prematurely white haired (eg Shaggy & Pooky), or bald (Burkey, Tofty, Winters and many, many of the Diamond Geezers)?

We decided to leave the house and repair to a public house to mull over what we had seen but on leaving the house we saw another terrible image – Scotty sitting down with 2 other people hunched over a crossword. One of them we recognised as D.Burne - a Tory spy and his chum known simply by his code name - “Averted Lens”! Then it became clear, Scotty had sold his soul in return for eternal life! An immensely evil and powerful official has used his minion to alter time for Scotty allowing him to retain his youthful looks (we all know how time can warp by as much as 9 minutes in any 40 minute period without even meaning to!) The terrible decision by "Averted Lens" during a rather bitter Cup Final wasn’t just a terrible piece of touch judging it was a warning of the misfortune that might befall Scotty should he try to break the contract he had previously signed in Pimms with the evil one!

When we approached the club to find the whereabouts of Scotty so we could confront him with this story we were told that he went on holiday to 1768 but that he would deal with us when he returned!

Please God protect us and our people!